MPAA attacks Ars for “challenging efforts to curb content theft”

Standing up to bad ideas is, according to the MPAA, a bad idea. Shame on us.

The Motion Picture Association of America doesn't like us. According to the MPAA blog on Tuesday, "Arts Technica" is a "tech blog with a long history of challenging efforts to curb content theft." (If so, we're the only such tech blog that actually encouraged a now-current MPAA lawyer to do copyright coverage for our site and that recommended the pro-rightsholder book Free Ride in this year's holiday guide.)

One can see why MPAA staffers might think this way. "Ars Technica opposes our attempt to gain 'broadcast flag' control over people's digital devices," they might say. "And it doesn't appreciate our plan to censor the Internet. And for some reason they'd like to rip copies of their DVDs to watch on the airplane, even though we managed to write anti-DRM cracking provisions into law. Man, these guys really love piracy!"

Put this way, the problem becomes clear: it's a simple conflation of our opposition to absolutely freaking insane (you'll forgive the slight hyperbole) approaches to copyright enforcement with opposition to enforcement of any kind.

It's a lot like saying, thirty years ago, that anyone who supported the VCR and its nefarious, time-shifting ways was to copyright holders what the Boston Strangler was to women home alone. (Not that any MPAA official would say anything so ridiculous.)

Not quite notorious enough for the MPAA to get our name right

Let's run down just a short list of the highest-profile copyright-related ideas we've opposed in the last few years. In parentheses are the, err, crazy freetards who came to the same conclusions we did on enforcement overreach.

That's a long list of federal judges, officials, and companies who came around on copyright. Perhaps they likewise can't stand anyone who tries to stop content theft?

As for the argument about economics that the post goes on to make, we'll just note that MPAA's own track record on the issue of piracy and money is so bad that, as Robert Levine notes in Free Ride, "The exaggerations of most Hollywood-funded studies have become a running joke." Even the MPAA had to admit that a 2008 study it was using to push a law was off by a factor of 3 in the key metric.

Regarding Julian Sanchez, the former Ars editor who is the main subject of the MPAA blog post, he committed a serious act of journalism for us back in 2008 when he showed conclusively just how bogus some of the central antipiracy figures were. His new post on the subject for Cato is also well worth a read.

Intervention

The thing is, we're really on the MPAA's side; they just don't realize it. We're both content creators who support copyright and want to see creators get paid for their efforts. But copyright maximalism is the wrong way forward. Like an addict who can't help himself, though, major copyright holders are so used to stanching their piratical worries with just one more hit on that sweet, sweet bottle of 120-proof distilled Essence of Enforcement that they can't stop the impulse any longer; it has become reflex. Those who ask them to have a calming cup of tea instead go on the "enemies list."

"Good copyright policy" doesn't necessarily mean "stronger copyright policy." Thinking that it does has caused a long litany of problems over the last century as copyright holders have sought to throttle the photocopier, the VCR, digital audio tape, MP3 players, and the DVR. Indeed, the industry's record on this score is downright shocking. But most of the people who backed those devices—like Mr. Rogers did with the VCR—weren't out to screw creative professionals. Neither are we. But sometimes, you need to stage an intervention, and you need to do so for the good of the addict... and the health of the community around him.